Homemade BUD [Not Big Ugly Dish, Butt Ugly Dish] Works though!

[. Raine]

Here's a few pictures of the Ku dish I made from fiberglass and tin foil. I actually found a good use for it, the SG2100 motor I have is too weak to move the steel dish but it moves this one with no problems, the thing weighs maybe five pounds, if that. It's not finished yet, I have to take the platter off and cover the backside with fiberglass and then sand it down [a lot] and paint it, so it's not quite so ugly!



Here's a picture of the platter I used as a mold, from my 76 cm Winegard dish.



Surprisingly, the ugly dish works a little better than the steel one did.

 

[KE4EST]

That is just too cool!!

 

[spongella]

American ingenuity in action. You might start a new fashion statement - "distressed dishes." Great work.

 

[. Raine]

American ingenuity in action. You might start a new fashion statement - "distressed dishes." Great work.

LOL! Maybe I should leave it ugly!

 

[N6BY]

Very nice. One dish gives birth to another, molded in its image.

 

[Cosmo Blatz]

...and then sand it down [a lot] and paint it,

Just paint up in camo colors and call it done!

Nice project!

 

[FaT Air]

Agree, Camo, or a floral design.?

 

[. Raine]

Camo, probably, maybe a few of the others too, hide a few! It's getting to look like a broadcast station here!

 

[spongella]

How about a happy face with yellow background? Smiling up at the heavens and satellites.

The fact that the reflective surface is in no way as smooth as the original dish gives some credence to the fact that dish surface conformity, at least for the Ku band is somewhat overrated. Thanks for the info A Raine, now I can save $ on sanding discs.

I think you've come up with a great idea. Taking the road less traveled leads to new concepts. Excellent work.

 

[. Raine]

How about a happy face with yellow background? Smiling up at the heavens and satellites.

The fact that the reflective surface is in no way as smooth as the original dish gives some credence to the fact that dish surface conformity, at least for the Ku band is somewhat overrated. Thanks for the info A Raine, now I can save $ on sanding discs.

I think you've come up with a great idea. Taking the road less traveled leads to new concepts. Excellent work.

Happy face sounds good! Although if I don't sand it, it'll be a very distorted happy face!

If I do this again, I'm gonna try fiberglass mat rather than cloth, probably I'll try the mat on the back side to see how it works. All of the clumps are from the cloth fibers getting stuck up in the brush, pulling on the rest and then clumping up, think the mat mightn't do that although it also might not conform to shape as easy as the cloth did either. Maybe use aluminum duct tape or something thicker than aluminum foil too, that won't pull and wrinkle as easy. If I'd known that it would work, I would've put a bit more effort into it, my thinking was for minimal cost and time cause I didn't expect as good of results as I got!

I was surprised myself with the foil being wrinkled in spots as it is, that it worked. Looking at it initially, I'd thought those wrinkles were going to be a deal breaker, but apparently not!

 

[spongella]

This is all good information you've provided. Probably if you have good Ku band reception to begin with, a wrinkled surface dish might perform similarly to a smooth surface dish.

 

[fred555]

Don't be stingy with the resin. Pour plenty of it on and use the brush just to guide or distribute the puddle. With practice you will get better at it. From the pictures it looks like you were trying to brush the resin on and disturbing the fibers.

 

[. Raine]

Don't be stingy with the resin. Pour plenty of it on and use the brush just to guide or distribute the puddle. With practice you will get better at it. From the pictures it looks like you were trying to brush the resin on and disturbing the fibers.

That's exactly what I was doing, I didn't think about just pouring it on first. I dipped the brush in the can and then brushed it on like paint, but it's thick enough to pour into a manageable puddle, that's the way I'll try it next time. Thanks!

 

[. Raine]

Been raining here, poured last night and overcast with a light drizzle right now. In the rain and being overcast, this dish doesn't work too good for some reason, signal is way down and some, like LPB, won't even lock, where as on the steel dish rain didn't affect it that badly.

Don't know if it's the rough surface, or if water got in between the foil and fiberglass last night, it really poured here last night! I'll have to see how it is after I smooth the surface out and seal up the back side of it.

 

[fred555]

I always wanted to try this but I can only have so many projects.

I have some fiberglass experience on the automotive side of things.
If I were to do this, here are the steps I would take:

1. Coat dish with release agent.

2. Lay the cloth and lay down the resin.

2.5 Optional If you wanted to get fancy, get a vacuum pump and plastic bag arrangement and vacuum-bag the thing, it will get air out and make the edges wrap around nice.Here is some info:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Vacuum-bagging-basics./
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/vacuum-forming-thermoforming-etc/61590-fibreglass-vacuum-forming.html
You basically put the part in a bag, suck a vacuum and the bag applies pressure all over the part and minimizes air bubbles.
I have never tried this myself but I have seen the results. Burt Rutan also uses this method on a large scale to make his carbon fiber airplanes.

3. Remove the part, sand/grind the edges.

4. Lay the dish upside down. Bondo any air pockets. This is the stage to get the backside as perfect as possible.

5. Spray back side with this: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/3msuper77multiadhes.php?clickkey=43952

6. Lay down foil. let adhesive dry.

7. Put in a steel reinforcement for mounting bracket and lay another layer of glass over foil.

8. Clean up edges if needed and paint.

 

[Vallenato]

Good proyect.. Congratulations

 

[. Raine]

Well, it wasn't the rain messing up the dish, it was the stupid junk SG2100 motor. The day it poured the dish messed up and it's been getting worse in the last week or so to the point where nothing came in, today I got a chance to go out and check it out, it's the motor. Sometimes it moves, sometimes not, sometimes it stops a bit before it gets to where it should be. No flashing error light, which is odd, but I'm thinking that maybe water got into the motor somehow when it rained and is messing it up.

This motor has been one of the most annoying things, it'd work for quite a while, then start messing up, which is why I'd stopped using it before. I'd figured it was weak and cheap, but maybe the problem is when it rains, moisture getting into it.

I removed the motor and just set the dish up fixed on 87W, working great. I'm going to pull the motor apart and see what's going on with it. If it's not something obvious, that motor will most likely end up in the scrap pile, it's been problems right from day one when I bought it.

 

[. Raine]

Well, it wasn't water getting into the motor, but it was an easy fix! The problem was just bad solder connections on the circuit board mounted onto the motor itself inside, both connections were broken loose. This is a picture before I re-soldered the connections, the board was just flopping around in there.



Re-soldered them and it seems to be working good now!